To engage your customers and prospects, your first step is crafting effective messages that are compelling and concise. But to gain their trust and ultimately their business, you need more than a message they care about. You need to know how best to convey your message to them.
Customers and prospects care about how their peers are overcoming challenges or finding opportunities. They also care about what trends are happening within their industry.
One of the most powerful ways to engage your customers is to talk about challenges and opportunities. Tell prospects about how customers have solved challenges or achieved opportunities like the ones they are facing.
After crafting effective messages, here are 3 best ways to engage your prospects:
1) Give examples through stories. Tell how your customers overcame challenges or found new opportunities.
Be sure you are comparing apples to apples. Talk about a CEO to CEO, a Sales VP to a Sales VP, a Director of Marketing to another Director of Marketing. To make your case relevant to your prospect, make sure your target audience titles are the same. Many customers and prospects know their colleagues face similar business challenges now.
Tell prospects about the immediate challenge you are solving for your customers. Confirm whether they are facing the same challenge or opportunity. Ask if they would like to learn how you solved the problem for your customer. Prospects will value an exchange of information. They value best practices, relationship building, a helping hand and your genuine concern.
2) Describe how their peers view trends.
Your customers and prospects are interested in knowing what their peers are doing about current trends. So tell them. Determine trends you see or how others are discussing trends in your industry. Provide these insights to your target audience contacts. Share information if it is meaningful and if it helps start a conversation.
Talk to anyone in your firm who talks with customers or prospects. What are they hearing? What are people feeling, saying, and forecasting? Read and research about what your target audience is doing, saying, or is facing today.
3) Explain how your solution helps them reach their goals.
Customers and prospects care about how they can reach or exceed their target goals.
More than likely, your customers have reprioritized their goals during this time. In reality target goals are readjusted many times throughout the year. Companies definitely re-address them at least on an annual basis.
Consider how your solution helps your target audience reach their target goals, whether they have readjusted yet or not. Anything that you can share about ways to reach their goals will be helpful to them.
If your prospects are executives in sales and marketing, or customer service, (the target audience we specialize in), their goals will probably be similar. They will be interested in retaining, acquiring and satisfying prospects and customers, increasing profitability and revenue, and maintaining or reducing costs.
Put thought into how you help serve these goals. Distinguish very specifically how they can retain, acquire and satisfy prospects and customers, increase profitability and revenue, or maintain or reduce costs working with your firm and using your solution.
It is not enough just to say you can help them reach their goals. You must personalize the how for them!
Customers and prospects care about how they can keep themselves and their employees motivated, efficient and productive.
Most employees are working remotely. For many employers and employees, this is new, uncharted territory. Anything you can share about how your solution served your target audience will be helpful. Show how it kept employees or themselves motivated, efficient, and productive.
Put thought into this. Distinguish very specifically how your solutions help their peers — your customers — keep their employees or themselves motivated, efficient, and productive. Once again personalize!
Customers and prospects care about how they can best serve their customers with an extraordinary customer experience.
If we can help you craft a personalized message for your prospect, please contact us.